Is there really any truth out there?

I sat here at my computer yesterday wondering what I could write, in fact wondering if I could be bothered to write particularly with the way I've been feeling over the last few weeks. Then it kind of struck me, you know one of those Eureka moments, so I thought I'd better jot it down, You know for posterity and all that.

We have forgotten the nature of truth, we have forgotten how to believe and we have forgotten how to hope.

Now today whilst I write this on my bed my young son is writing out his Santa list. Yes I know it is July but he's ten years old and has just finished school for the summer holidays so by nature he is already bored, and of course Christmas starts in about two weeks. He's not put a lot on it but he's written this wonderful heart wrenching piece about how he's been bullied this year, and how he doesn't want a lot but these things will help him feel better.

Now how does that fit in with what is in bold type?

As a ten year old he is now learning about disappointment and how frail the human psyche can be. People whom he thought were his friends are clearly not his friends, As an adult it is easy for me to spot these parasites, for that is what they really are using his good nature so that they may abuse what he has then move on, but for my son well that is not quite the case.

Yet it his is absolute belief in Santa that made me realise that hope is what we are missing in our lives.

This whole murky world that has been dragged up before our eyes in the News of the World hacking scandal is something that in reality we have known about for years. If it's not the State spying on us it is business and if it's not business it's the press. So where is the hope?

I watched a television programme recently about the Bader-Meinhoff Gang and something that was called the Red Army Faction and it reminded me to look to history. Throughout civilisation there has been a constant desire for a few to dominate many and from time to time that backfires and some anti-establishment group pops it's head above the water only to be shot down. Ultimately though the system comes along and everything is normalised again.

This is sheer nonsense. We are all involved in a game that ultimately means there will be winners and losers. We live in so called civilisation but we play games because as Orwell so deftly put it "All pigs are equal but some pigs are more equal than others". Sure we need structure just look at what happens to bees if they lose their hive structure, but maybe that is the point.

Is the reason that bees have started to die out because they have given up hope and belief?

I can hear you laughing already, Trace the madman is back again. Bees? have hope? have belief ? those are human qualities stop talking hippy nonsense and stop taking the LSD.

I can assure you that I am no more sane or insane than the next person in line for if I have swallowed the pill that is one far more potent than LSD, it is the pill of mediocrity. Average Joe's like myself are the simple workers in the hive whilst the Murdoch's are the Queen's and they must survive.

If we give up on this system for it is all we really know then like the bees that suffer from colony disorder our civilisation is bound to fail.

Our civilisation will only fail if we give up hope and belief.

And so we must weed out the truth, however unpleasant it is, we must burn out the rot that has taken hold at the top to allow for new growth at the roots. And before anyone says it I am not talking armed insurrection. We have to give our children back what so clearly we have lost. We have to give them back Santa, we have to give them back something to believe in and something to hope for.

Heroic deeds come in all shapes and sizes

So Andy lost and Rafa won. There is no shame being Hector when Achilles is around however Hector must become Paris and find the heel! Just a few points separated these two great players in a match that yet again should have been a final not a semi. Well Andy's efforts were heroic and you could see how much the match had taken out of him but I say to him now of his heroic deeds, your day will come and you shall be crowned champion.

Turning to other heroic deeds I recently visited the Underground Tunnels at Dover Castle that were used to plan the evacuation at Dunkirk. These people were heroes of a different kind and it is very much worth a visit to pay tribute and memory of those people who made sure that I can write this blog today.

But at the end of the day the only reason for being heroic is because of love. Love for a sport, for a country for an ideal for a person. It's all the same because without that love ordinary people would not find the passion and the courage to do extraordinary things.

So my thought from the edge for today is simple.

Put love in your heart, fire in your belly and whatever you are doing, DO IT WITH PASSION!

Balls and More Balls

What a title for this section? Intrigued? Me too. What will it be about?

Well lets start with decadence in the form of the White Tie Ball from Sir Elton John. Now here's a man who gets a lot of bad press fro being a grumpy bad tempered diva. So what if he is, he has worked hard throughout his life and if he wants to be like that so be it. But I think there must be another side to Sir Elton for if there wasn't how would he have found his true love. And that's the thing to remember. We all wear masks but when we are alone in the dark, as Shakespeare once said, "To thine own self be true". Remember the only person who has power in your life is you. You decide who you love, you decide how you life goes and you have the power to change things, no one else, just you!

And that brings me to the second set of balls, or should I say new balls please.

Now I will admit that when I first saw Andy Murray I was not his biggest fan. Why? well he wasn't Timbo was he? However as I have watched him grow he has shown his true nature a steely determination and a strength of character that few people have. The challenge is he is up against a mammoth of a task today when he takes on Rafa, the man every father would like their daughter to marry. But in reality the truth is that both these two young men are good decent people who have triumphed to reach the top of their chosen profession. If Andy wins today the whole nation will get a boost, if Rafa wins today then people will not jeer nor curse because we love him too. Today tennis will win, and that is what sport is about, for tomorrow Andy and Rafa will play play station together again for they are friends that have rivalry in a thing that they love. Yet they know at the end of the day it is just a game.

It's all about the balls!